


When in Berlin

by mzanthropist



Category: Captain America (Movies), Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Crossover, Crossover Pairings, F/M, Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-11
Updated: 2016-05-11
Packaged: 2018-06-07 17:51:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6817927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mzanthropist/pseuds/mzanthropist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As the saying goes, when in Berlin, befriend a fugitive.</p><p>(Or that time Karen goes on vacation and unwittingly has coffee with the Winter Soldier.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	When in Berlin

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea if anyone, other than myself, is even remotely interested in this pairing. But I have a deep, abiding love for both of these characters and this demanded to be written.

On the 30th of April (at 10:55pm, if details are your thing), Karen boards a flight out of JFK. She begins May in a different country and continent, landing in London a little rumpled and with a crick in her neck.

She doesn’t leave New York to chase a story – there’re no leads to pursue or paper trails to follow, no evidence that requires collecting and third-party corroboration. No, Karen actually books time off (“Well, this is new," Ellison says when she makes the request, brows arching in surprise. "I usually have to crowbar you away from your desk and threaten to cut your word limit just to get you to even consider stepping out of the office for lunch.”) and leaves a spare key with Mrs. Valdez (the one plant by her kitchen window wasn’t going to water itself). Given the year she’s had (and with her own mortality now at its peak salience), she decides now’s a good a time as any to do the whole backpacking-through-Europe thing that she hadn’t had the time or money to do as a twenty-something college student.

She makes her way west, following London up with Paris then Brussels. Two days ahead of her birthday (and one after the bombing in Vienna leaves the world reeling), Karen arrives in Berlin. Just in time for the spectacle that is James Buchanan Barnes' (aka the Winter Soldier's) jailbreak. And notwithstanding the fact that an internationally wanted terrorist-fugitive who had, according to reports, single-handedly winded Iron Man, incapacitated several CIA operatives and waterlogged a 3000-pound helicopter is at large - and aided by one Captain America, no less - the German capital is as stoic and unperturbed as ever. Even as Interpol, the CIA and local police scour the city by satellite and on foot, and Secretary Ross vociferously denounces (and effectively disowns) the human embodiment of the Star-Spangled Banner, Berliners continue to go about their day, sedately sipping their coffees and calmly running their errands.

God, she has impeccable timing. Or a nose for shitstorms that have well-intentioned vigilantes with some serious authority issues as their root cause.

After checking into her hotel and dropping off her belongings, Karen wanders down the street to a bustling hole-in-the-wall coffee shop she’d spotted on the ride over.

After she's ordered and paid, a latte and an apple strudel that came highly recommended balanced in either hand, Karen does a quick sweep of the dining area, assessing the café's seating situation. Much to her dismay, the already cramped space was overflowing with newly arrived patrons, well on its way to (if not already at) maximum capacity and with not a single open table in sight. She heaves a resigned sigh.

She’s turning back around, ready to ask the barista to pack up the pastry to go in her broken, supplemented-by-English German, when she catches sight of a lone figure seated by the window facing the street, his table clear of everything save for the mug he slides to-and-fro between his hands.

Before she can overthink it, Karen walks over, studying him along the way. He reminds her of Frank, all guarded eyes and five o’clock shadows, scraggly hair confined under a baseball cap that’s pulled low over his eyes. And also like Frank, he guzzles the contents of his mug almost compulsively.

Reaching the table, she sets her coffee mug and plate of strudel on the scuffed surface. The soft thud of ceramic hitting wood causes the table’s sole occupant to snap his head up (at a rather alarming speed, she might add), half-rising out of his seat, shadowed grey-blue eyes boring into hers.

Karen sends him an apologetic look, taking a backward step as she hastily retrieves the phrasebook from the cluttered depths of her bag. “Entschuldigung,” she apologizes, trying to locate the page she’d dog-eared on the train ride.

His eyes snap to the cover of the book. “I speak English.”

Karen glances up, fingers stilled mid-flip. “Oh.” She shuts the book and deposits it back into her bag, relieved (she doesn’t think it contained a translation for ‘sorry for scaring you shitless.’) “In that case, sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

He shrugs languidly, slumping back into his seat. “Not your fault. I was distracted.”

Karen eyes him warily, not unlike that time in second grade when her brother had, much to their parents’ chagrin, brought home a slightly feral-eyed three-year-old black lab named Aero after his first shift at the shelter. Tucking her hair behind her ear, she clears her throat. “Um, so, I don’t know if you noticed, but this place is kind of packed and this —” she points at the chair opposite him “— as far as I can tell, is the only empty seat in the house…” She looks at him expectantly.

He stares back blankly in response.

“I guess what I’m asking is: Would you mind if I sat here?” She flashes him a sheepish, hopeful smile. “Just until another table clears or a space at the bar opens up.”

He blinks. “Oh, yeah, sure.” He gestures to the seat across from him with a gloved hand. “All yours.”

Karen lets out a relieved breath, smile widening. “Great, thank you so much.”

She lifts the strap of her satchel over her head and hangs it on the top rail of the chair, all the while surreptitiously watching the reticent stranger out of the corner of her eye. She pulls out the chair, noting the twitch of his fingers as the legs scrape against the floor, and drops onto it.

“So, I take it you’re not from around here?” she ventures cautiously, pulling her mug and plate away from the edge of the table. “Judging from your accent, am I right to assume you’re an American?”

He answers with another inscrutable stare.

As the silence stretches, Karen shifts uncomfortably in her seat. “Sorry,” she mumbles, raising her mug, ostensibly to take a sip, but really to break the unnerving eye contact he’d engaged her in, “forget I asked. Or said anything at all. I totally respect that you want to drink your coffee in silence and not be pestered by some—”

“Technically,” he interrupts, drawing out each syllable, “yes, I’m more or less American.”

She peeks over the rim of the giant mug clutched in her hands, a brow lifting. _‘Technically’? ‘More or less’?_ “Oh, okay. Cool.”

“And I’m in Berlin… on business. Of sorts.” Even more cryptic.

“So you’re an expat living in Europe?” Karen recaps-slash-infers casually, curiosity piqued by his deliberate vagueness and careful choice of words.

He considers her through his lashes. “You ask a lot of questions.”

“Sorry,” Karen apologizes perfunctorily (hey, when some mysterious, monosyllabic stranger volunteers answers to questions that she didn't even ask, she’d be remiss not to seize the opportunity to follow up and probe a little deeper), “force of habit.” At his lifted brow, she explains, “I write for the _New York Bulletin_ and, as it turns out, the urge to twenty-question the hell out of everyone is kind of hard to shake.”

He straightens in his seat. “You’re from New York?”

She nods, setting down her coffee and picking up her fork. Cutting into her strudel, she says, “Hell’s Kitchen, if you want to get really specific.”

A corner of his mouth lifts into a crooked smile. “Ah, a Manhattanite.”

Karen looks up, swallowing a mouthful of pastry-apple goodness. "You have something against Manhattan?” She narrows her eyes, brandishing her powdered sugar-coated fork half-accusingly. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those hipsters from Brooklyn.”

His hands rise in mock-surrender, a spark of amusement lighting his eyes. “Guilty as charged." He cocks his head. "Or half, anyway. Because yeah, I’m a Brooklynite; but no, I’m probably not a ‘hipster’, considering I have no idea what that even is.”

Before she can respond (yeah, that’s what hipsters _would_ say), he’s suddenly on his feet, looking through the window at something – or someone – across the street. Chin dipping almost imperceptibly in acknowledgement (so a some _one_ , Karen deduces), he mumbles, “I have to go.”

“Oh.” Karen casts a sidelong glance out the window. Traffic obstructs her view of whatever lies on the other side of the street. “Alright, well, I hope whatever business you have here goes well,” she says lamely.

He gives her a curt nod. “Thanks.” He starts to make his way to the exit.

“And just for the record,” she calls, spinning in her seat and causing him to pause mid-step, “I have nothing against Brooklyn. Or hipsters, just as long as they don’t serve me food in a surgical tray or cocktails in a dirty, old can.”

He gives her a puzzled look. “Okay…?”

“And if you ever decide you’ve had your fill of life abroad and decide to come home, maybe I’ll see you around New York.” Karen laughs. “I know it’s a city of eight-and-a-half million people so the chances of us running into each other again are slim to none, but —” she shrugs “— who knows. Unlikelier things have happened.”

A faint curve settles on his lips. “Yeah, maybe,” he says, voice soft and almost wistful. His eyes drop to the floor for the briefest of moments before lifting back up and locking with hers. “Bucharest.”

Karen frowns, brows knitting with confusion. “Romania?”

He gives a confirmatory nod.

“What about it?”

“You should check it out. It's got some great farmers’ markets, some really top-notch plums.”

Karen shakes her head, the creases between her brows deepening as she tries to wrap her head around the nonsense he’s spewing. He wanted her to go to Bucharest for _plums_? “What—”

“Look, all I’m saying is that it might be worth a visit.” He adjusts the brim of his cap, spinning on his heel. “Enjoy the rest of your trip.” And with that, he darts out of the café.

Bewildered, Karen blinks a couple of times, trying to decipher the subtext of his departing remarks. Is (or was) that where he’s been living? And what did farmers’ markets and produce have to do with anything? (Also, was there a section on Romanian in her phrasebook?)

She turns her head and peers out the café's ceiling-to-floor window, watching with a craned neck as her enigmatic coffee companion climbs into the back of an ancient navy blue VW Beetle. Two burly, aviator-toting men slide in after him to occupy the passenger and driver’s seats. (How the frame of the relic doesn’t immediately crumple beneath the three’s combined weight, Karen doesn’t know.)

Just who the hell _was_ this guy?

* * *

“Who was that you were talking to?” Steve asks, and Bucky can tell it’s taking every ounce of his friend’s energy to keep his eyebrows from bobbing up and down in a suggestive waggle.

Meanwhile, Sam makes a displeased noise, lips pressed together unhappily. “Man, how am I the only one of the three of us who didn’t get a chance to get his flirt on this whole trip?”

Bucky looks out one of the Bug's tiny windows and finds the woman in question staring back. She gives a tentative wave; he lifts his non-bionic hand in return. “I don’t know,” he says, almost to himself. Steve starts the car. “I forgot to ask for her name.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. Please leave a comment and/or kudos - they're much appreciated!


End file.
